


You're still as gorgeous as ever (but I won't tell you that)

by pandacheeze



Series: A cuppa love, please [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: CoraLaw (mentioned), KidLaw (unrequited), M/M, Nostalgia, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 06:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13242819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandacheeze/pseuds/pandacheeze
Summary: Kid has his annual health check-up, and the doctor reading his lab results happens to be his high school sweetheart.





	You're still as gorgeous as ever (but I won't tell you that)

 

While waiting for his blood results, Kid wolfs down the breakfast set which he bought with the meal coupon from his check-up package. Fuck, he's starving. He worked overtime last night and couldn't have dinner because he had to go on the twelve-hour fast for this morning's blood test.

After downing his pulpy orange juice, he strides unhurriedly from the hospital's restaurant zone back to the check-up center. It's only half past eight but the place is already crammed with people, or to be more precise, salary men and women like him who had half a year to use their company's free health check-up package but nooo, everyone just has to rush in all at the same time in the last weeks of December.

Kid picks up a random magazine and manages to browse through it plus another volume before a nurse finally calls out "Mr. Eustass?" to the mass of bored people in the waiting area. He chucks the magazines back on the side table, hops out of his seat, and follows the nurse to one of the dozen of doctor rooms. The slim woman slides the door open, revealing a male doctor sitting behind a desk.

Kid's jaw drops upon seeing the familiar black hair, mocha skin, and golden orbs, the very same entrancing pair that the redhead used to get lost in so, so many times in the past.

"...Law?"

Looking at his current patient and once-upon-a-time boyfriend with indifferent eyes, the said person's lips quirk up in the tiniest of smirks.

"What a coincidence, isn't it?" 

Adulthood has made Law's voice sound deeper than Kid remembers, but the slightly husky timbre is still recognizable. Kid still recalls how the pitch of the smaller male's moans would escalate until he arched up against Kid's own torso and wetted their stomachs with his release.

"I thought you were a heart surgeon?" he asks as he sits down. The nurse stands by in a corner but shows obvious interest in the two men's conversational tone.

"Still am, but the check-up center needs more hands to help with the year-end wave of corporate patients like you, so I volunteered. Reading cholesterol and sugar levels is easy, and so is the money."

Without further ado, Law turns his computer screen so Kid can see it as well. He explains the numbers in Kid's lab results to him, but the redhead finds himself more focused on the fingers tapping the screen. He used to hold them, kept them warm and laced with his own on cold days. But he was also the one to push those slender fingers away when Law begun asking for one thing that Kid, being the fun-loving musclehead at that time, didn't want to give yet.

Commitment.

The doctor''s other hand presses the directional keys on the keyboard. Click, click, click, they go, and Kid notices the golden circle encompassing Law's ring finger.

_So he's... really married..._

Kid has a pretty good idea who the husband is.  

Soon after Law had chosen to fade away from Kid's life, he realized that it was a mistake to let such a person go. Even in the company of other pretty faces, Kid's mind drifted back to Law. He missed him. Simple as that. It wasn't even a sexual craving. He just missed the sincerity of Law's words and actions. Missed Law's tranquil, heartwarming presence. Missed how Law and him just sat together at the park instead of going to fancy places.

Never before had Kid attempted to make up with any of his exes. He always thought that _they_  were the stupid ones not worth his time anymore. However, with Law... Their breakup made Kid realize that _he_  was the wrong one. Law hadn't asked for the world. He merely wanted Kid to be his one and only and vice versa. It was a fairly mature concept that Kid had failed to understand at that time, mistaking it for clinginess. Maybe it was about time for him to grow up, too. To stop fooling around and start thinking of a serious relationship. 

"Your LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels are way lower than average. Are you a vegetarian or something?" Law asks, seeming puzzled by the contast between Kid's huge build and his low bad fat indicators. It's normal for people to think that Kid eats like a t-rex. He actually does, but selectively. 

"I eat meat, too. Just not the deep-fried stuff or chicken skin."

The other nods in approval.

"That's great. Poutlry's high in bad fats and purine, which could lead to gout."

"Yeah. I know."

It took Kid some time to compose some apologetic words to say to Law. He tried catching the guy after school but wasn't ever able to. For several days, no matter how quick he went to Law's class after the bell rang, Law was already gone. It didn't help that his gang of best friends were tight-lipped, never telling Kid about Law's evening whereabouts.

He had to change his tactic by asking Law's other classmates, the ones who didn't know that he was Law's former boyfriend trying to make things right. He had to cook up believable shit about him wanting to return borrowed stationery to him in person. Lots of them told Kid that they often saw Law at the coffee shop near their school.

So Kid went there and spotted Law easily enough. He was sitting at the table closest to the counter, looking at the shop owner who was taking out something from the display fridge. Kid briskly sat down on the chair nearest to him, internally rehearsing his lines. While he was doing that, Mr. Rosinante walked toward Law and served him a cinnamon roll. Back still bowed, the barista locked eyes with Law's and they exchanged some words which were out of Kid's hearing range. Law was resting his chin on the back of his hand with a flirty smile on his face, gazing at the blond as if he meant the entire universe to him.

It was at that moment when Kid realized that there was something happening between those two. Something deep and intimate. Something that spared absolutely no space for Kid to wedge himself in between them. Kid might be a person who wouldn't go down without a fight, but even he knew that trying to win Law's affection back would be a lost cause. Mr. Rosinante was bigger, better, and more mature than him in every way. Most importantly, he seemed like the devoted type of guy that Law was searching for. 

"Well, all your indicators are excellent. I don't even know why a perfectly healthy guy like you is here in the first place. Did you experience any sort of symptoms that made you want to get checked?" the present Law in front of Kid asks, leaning back in his chair. Aside from their initial greeting, Law's been talking to him in a doctor-patient tone with barely any cordiality.

"Nah. It's just part of my company's employee benefits. Who wouldn't want a free blood test, right?"

"True."

The doctor asks him if he has any more questions but Kid can think of none, so Law has the nurse lead Kid out of the room.

After stepping past the door frame, Kid turns around again.

"Hey Law..."

"Hm?" replies the other with a blasé expression while he shoves Kid's patient history folder to the corner of his desk.

_I'm sorry._

_I was a fool back then._

_I should've realized how valuable you were--are to me._

_I..._

_I..._

_...still love you._

The words that Kid wants to say now might not be what Law wants to hear anymore. It's too late to apologize.

Far too late.

"Happy New Year," is what the redhead blurts instead.

Law's lips smile a bit, but his eyes do not.

Hospitable yet distant. 

What more can an ex like Kid expect? 

"You, too," Law says dutifully. He turns his gorgeous face away to look at a few sheets of paper on his desk. Then the nurse slides the door between them two, and Kid feels as if she just severed the last string tying him to Law.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a sequel to my CoraLaw fic "The Coffee Shop". I'm supposed to write that one's (smutty) final chapter but this feel-sad scene of Law and Kid's encounter in the future appeared in my head and I just had to write it down first.


End file.
